Cooking Classes

30.10.13

Another flavour of the fall and winter season that I adore is quince. Quince is a pome like apples and pears. That means it has a core with usually 5 seeds surrounded by the fleshy fruit. Unlike apples and pears, however, quince is usually not edible without cooking. They can be rock hard. However, they are similar to apples in that they contain natural pectin.

I was delighted to find quince at my local grocery store. They make a lovely jelly or jam for toast, but I have always wanted to make membrillo. This is also called quince paste and is popular in Spain where it is paired with manchego cheese.

Place quince large saucepan and
cover with water. Cut the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Add vanilla seeds, pod and lemon peel and bring to a
boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and let cook until the quince is fork tender (30-40 minutes).
Strain water. Discard the
vanilla pod but keep the lemon peel. Purée the quince in a food processor or blender. Measure
the quince purée. Add an equal amount of sugar. So if you have 4 cups of purée, you'll need 4
cups of sugar. Return the quince purée to the large pan. Heat to
medium-low. Stir with a wooden spoon until the sugar
has completely dissolved. Add lemon juice.

Continue to cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, for
1-1 1/2 hours, until the quince paste is very thick and has a deep
orange pink color.

Preheat oven to a low 125°F (52°C). Line an 8" x 8" baking pan
with parchment paper. Spray a thin coating of oil on the
parchment paper. Pour the cooked quince
paste into the parchment paper-lined baking pan. Smooth out the top of
the paste so it is even. Place in the oven for about an hour to help it
dry. Remove from oven and let cool.

To serve, cut into squares or wedges and present with Manchego
cheese. To eat, take a small slice of the membrillo and place it on
top of a slice of the cheese. Store membrillo in an airtight container in the a cold room. It will keep for months.

22.10.13

In the cooler days of autumn we are more inclined toward the slow braises. The rich flavours of root vegetables are a match to this local Black Welsh lamb. Mashing the root vegetables together mellows out the rutabaga and adds the sweetness of carrots. Autumn greens such as brussels sprouts, cabbage or kale complete the comforting meals we crave as the weather turns.

Don't feel that you always need the prime cuts for a lovely meal. The racks and legs are beautiful but also more expensive. This less tender but flavourful cut becomes 'melt in your mouth' perfect with low and slow cooking. Unpeeled cloves of garlic scent the dish without overpowering. Squeeze their deliciousness into the smashed vegetables.

This gravy is packed with flavour. I enjoy the contrasting saltiness of the capers and freshness of the mint. If served immediately, the mint is brilliant green and beautiful.

Cut the fat side of the lamb in a cross-hatch pattern with a sharp knife.
Lay half the sprigs of rosemary and half the garlic cloves on the bottom of a Dutch oven, rub the lamb all over with olive oil and season generously with
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place the roast on top of the rosemary and garlic, and put
the rest of the rosemary and garlic on top of the lamb. Cover with lid and place in the oven. Turn the oven down immediately to 325 F and cook for 4 hours. It's done if you can pull the meat apart
easily with two forks.

When the lamb is nearly cooked, put the potatoes, carrots
and rutabaga into a large pot of boiling salted water and boil hard for about 20
minutes or until tender. Drain and
allow to steam dry, then smash them up in the pan with most of the butter. If
you prefer a smooth texture, add some cooking water. Spoon into a bowl, cover
with foil and keep warm over a pan of simmering water.

Remove the lamb from the oven and place it on a chopping
board. Cover it with foil, then a kitchen towel, and let it rest. Put a
large pan of salted water on to boil for the greens. Pour away most of the fat
from the roasting pan, discarding any bits of rosemary. Put the pan on the
stovetop over medium heat and mix in the flour. Add the stock, stirring and
scraping all the sticky bits off the bottom of the pan. Add
the capers, turn the heat down and simmer for a few minutes.

Finely chop the mint and add it to the sauce with the red
wine vinegar at the last minute then pour into a pitcher. Add the greens and
stalks to the pan of fast-boiling salted water and cook for 4 to 5 minutes to
just soften them. Drain and toss with a knob of butter and a pinch of salt and
pepper. Place everything in the middle of the table, and shred the lamb in
front of your guests.

16.10.13

Yesterday as I drove home from my teaching day at a Hutterite Colony I had an inquisitive mind. I was intrigued by mounds of soil just off the roadway. Driving in to inspect I found it was a gravel pit. Across the fence were brilliant berries. I have heard so much of buffalo berries and I was sure I had found them. Without buckets I was not able to harvest them. Now I know where they are. Next year I will pick my fill.

14.10.13

It was a beautiful Thanksgiving Monday. One of my favourite drives is south from Tompkins to the bench that follows through to the Cypress Hills. As you climb from the Trans Canada Highway you wind through farmland that gradually changes to ranchland as the land becomes more rolling and arid. Then it returns to farmland. There is a popular creek for trout fishing on the bench.

Most of the crops have been harvested. A few farmers are finishing.

This little mule deer was nice enough to stop and pose before jumping the fence and into the bluff.

Agricultural land developed for gas wells.

I can remember as a child helping my father plant trees supplied by the PFRA. They were planted to reduce wind erosion and increase moisture retention by trapping the winter's snow.

Sadly many farmers are removing the trees leaving wide open landscapes.

Idyllic country scene.

This slough was filled with ducks bobbing for food until I walked over to take a picture! Hunting season makes them a little skittish.

Pond without the ducks.

Lutheran church in Admiral, SK. Three churches like this in this tiny village in addition to other heritage buildings.

The modern day farm has a large farmstead. With the heavy grain and lentil yields many new bins have been purchased.

10.10.13

I received an email a few weeks ago asking if I would be interested in reviewing a new cookbook. Pffft, any time I can get a free cookbook I am all over it. It was a pleasant surprise to see that it actually was a new book that I had been reading about. I saw it in Safeway yesterday. And it is Canadian to boot. These gals have a popular blog called the Sweet Potato Chronicles. They are/were young working mom's on a mission to feed their family right.

Anytime a delivery truck comes to my house it is an occasion. It is always food related. I buy a lot of my market ingredients online and also sometimes purchase kitchen gadgets over the internet. Well, okay, not just sometimes! I am on a constant search for cooking and baking things.

My most recent acquisitions are a linen couche used in rising baguette, a lame or in English it is a

blade for scoring bread and the most adorable beehive cookie cutter. The cookie cutter is a gift for my market friend, Brenda from Prairie Fields Honey. My winter project is to perfect a cookie recipe for her so she can sell honey cookies in the shape of a beehive. Cool, eh? Check out Provisions by Duchess Bakery in Edmonton. They have an online store and ship quickly.

Anyhoo, back to the cookbook. It's a lovely book. Tons of really good pictures of food. A lot of the recipes are a little juvenile for me, but that is what it is all about. The recipes need to be kid friendly. I love the pictures, I really do but when it gets to be a family photo album and all those barefeet in the kitchen it distracts me from the purpose of the book. There are a few interesting recipes for the older children, the teens, but no mention of how to involve them in healthy meals. Why are they always left out? So this brings to mind the purpose of a cookbook, any cookbook.

This book offers no training on cooking skills, only recipes. What I have learned from one young woman with children is that none of her friends know how to cook. They want to learn some skills.

Then I think to myself. Self, who would I go to for good solid nutrition information? A nutritionist, a dietitian, a naturopathic doctor, a fashion magazine director? Hmmm.

The first recipe I tried was the pumpkin cheesecake. I was writing a newspaper article for Thanksgiving and thought this would be appropriate. But actually, by the time I finished, the cheesecake bore no resemblance to the recipe I started with. Their recipe was great inspiration and my mind just took off in another direction. I promise that I will try again!

This is my version of their pumpkin cheesecake.

Pumpkin Cheesecake with Triple
Ginger Crust

Crust

6 tbsp. melted butter 60 mL

1 1/2 c. graham crumbs 375 mL

2 tbsp. finely chopped
crystallized ginger 30 mL

1 tbsp. finely chopped fresh
ginger 15 mL

1/2 tsp. ground ginger 3 mL

Filling

8 oz. cream cheese 225 gm

2/3 c. mascarpone cheese 80 mL

1/4 c. brown sugar 60 mL

1/2 c. pumpkin puree 125 mL

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract 5 mL

1.4 tsp. ground ginger 1 mL

Pinch ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C).

For the crust, place all
ingredients into a food processor and process until finely ground. Press 3
tablespoons (45 mL) into each jar.

For the filling, beat all the
ingredients in a food processor or with an electric mixer on medium speed until
light and fluffy.

Pour a generous 1/4 c. (60 mL)
filling over crusts. Bake for about 20 minutes or until cheesecakes are firm.
Cool and serve. Garnish with a dollop of whipped cream and a piece of
crystallized ginger or pumpkin seed brittle. Makes 8 – 250 mL jars or one
9-inch (24 cm) cake. Bake a 9-inch cheesecake for about 45 minutes or until a
knife inserted in filling comes out clean.

7.10.13

Our summers are short but wonderful. The days are hot, the skies are blue and the sweet smell of gardens and fields fills the air. I have a little garden but it is mostly herbs, rhubarb and a few tomatoes for the table. I buy at the Farmers' Market to enjoy that summer flavour.

I grew up in a home where we traditionally preserved B.C. fruit, garden vegetables, butchered meats and freshly caught northern lake fish for the winter. I always wished we had a cold room. Even as a young person in high school I was intensely interested in fresh local food and foraging for berries and other edibles.

Farm life back then assured us that we would have all that.

This year I am preserving a few things. I don't use a lot but I cannot help myself when I see the beautiful stone fruits, pickling cucumbers and local berries. These can be the beginning of an even greater meal. A little black currant jam added to pan juices of a roast duck takes the sauce to the next level. Apricot jam has varied applications in the baking world. This is my justification for adding to my cold room collection.

In addition to these recipes, I have blanched and frozen green beans. Saskatoon berries are in the freezer. I have cured fresh garlic from Anna at The Garlic Garden in Yorkton. Last year I had her fresh garlic throughout the winter and up until the new harvest. I keep it in a basket that I hang on the wall of my cold room. I buy potatoes to store in the cold room. Now I wish I had a root cellar! One day.

This fall or early winter I do expect that I will be gifted some wild pheasant. Last year was my first time plucking and cleaning pheasant! I was sorely unprepared but a quick lesson from the hunter set me in the right direction. Pheasant makes the loveliest clear consommé.

I had a lot of hot peppers from the market that I could not eat quickly so I have pickled them. They will be great in sandwiches. Yum.

Apricot Jam

This is a simple recipe but just bursting with flavour. It has quickly become my favourite jam for toast.

8 c. coarsely chopped apricots

4 c. sugar

1 c. honey

juice and grated peel of 1 orange

1/8 tsp. salt

Combine all ingredients in a Dutch oven. Bring to a boil.
Cook, stirring frequently until thick, about 30 minutes. Pour into hot
sterilized jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Wipe jar rims thoroughly. Seal and
process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes (or more depending upon
altitude). Yield: about 8 cups.

Chokecherry Jelly recipe from Bernardin

When I was a teenager we would drive to the hills and seek out locations where we might score a good amount of chokecherries. They have a unique puckery flavour that translates well into jelly, jam and syrup. I could never get the recipe right back then. They have no natural pectin and there was no real recipe. The farm women just knew how to make it. I should have planted myself in my favourite cook's kitchen and documented her recipe. Regrets!

This produced a very soft jelly. I see there is no lemon juice in the recipe. Next time I would add 2 tbsp. bottled lemon juice. Bottled lemon juice has a consistent acidity level as compared to the fresh fruit that can vary.

Last week after the Market ended a man from one of the Hutterite
colonies gave me 3 bags of pickling cucumbers. How could I
refuse?

My mother always made bread 'n butter pickles. We loved them. I have never tried making them until now. I cannot ever remember her looking at a recipe book and she always sang while she made them. Slicing cucumbers give a lot of time for reflection and I realized that this simple act of making pickles formed a connection with my mother that was never possible when she was alive. She suffered with schizophrenia most of my life. Relationships were not her strength.

Three bags are a lot of cucumbers. I needed to make something else. This recipe for cucumber relish looked good and might be nice on hotdogs and hamburgers. We have a block party coming up. I will test this on my neighbours!

This is my contribution this month for The Canadian Food Experience Project, the brainchild of Valerie at A Canadian Foodie. This is the 5th
edition of a yearlong project. You can find posts from other participants here.

6.10.13

The newly released Obesity in
Canada report announces that one in four Canadians are obese. Now is the time
to talk about fats.

Dietary fats are given a lot of
bad press. It is true they have twice as many calories as proteins and
carbohydrates but they carry and allow the absorption of essential nutrients
such as Vitamins A, D, and E. Fats also provide a feeling of satisfying your
hunger. You need fats in your diet but it is important to monitor the amount
and quality. The amount of fat you require depends upon your age.

Fats are categorized as
unsaturated, saturated and trans. Unsaturated are the healthiest and trans fats
are the least desirable. The two main types of unsaturated fats are
monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Vegetable oil, nuts and seeds and avocados
fall into the category of monounsaturated. Fish, fish oils, some nuts and seeds
and some vegetable oils are polyunsaturated. These oils provide essential
omega-3 and -6 fatty acids.

Trans fat is made from a
chemical process known as partial hydrogenation as liquid oil is made into a
solid fat. Saturated and trans fats have been shown to raise LDL which
increases your risk for heart disease. Unlike saturated fat, trans fat also
lowers HDL or good cholesterol. A low level of HDL cholesterol is also a risk
factor for heart disease.

According to Health Canada you
can lower cholesterol levels and reduce the risk of heart disease by replacing
saturated and trans fats with unsaturated fats.

Until recently, most of the
trans fat found in a typical Canadian diet came from hard margarines,
commercially fried foods, and bakery products. Our food supply is rapidly
changing and the trans fat content of many of these products has now been
reduced. It is still important to look at the Nutrition Facts label to make
sure the food product you are buying has little or no trans fat.

Use vegetable oils in small
amounts for stir frying or sautéing. A teaspoon is usually enough. Heat oil
before frying to prevent the food from soaking up the oil. Fill a spray bottle
with vegetable oil to spray your pans instead of greasing. Make your own salad
dressing. Add balsamic, rice wine or other vinegars. Flavour with lemon juice,
dry or Dijon mustard, garlic and herbs.

When eating out, check the
nutrition information of menu items before you order and ask for gravy, sauces
and salad dressings on the side. Order smaller portions or share with someone.
I often take my own container and remove excess food from my plate before I
begin eating to ensure that I do not overeat.

Your two decisions in selecting
a fat or oil for cooking are flavour and smoke point. Smoke point is the
temperature at which fat breaks down into glycerol and fatty acids, smoke is
produced and the nutrition and flavour deteriorate. The normal temperature of
deep frying is 375F (190C).

Neutral flavoured oils like
grapeseed, safflower, and canola have high smoke points and are ideal for pan
and deep frying. Peanut oil has the highest smoke point but some people may
have an allergy.

Flavoured fats for pan frying
include olive oil, clarified butter, goose and duck fat. Rendered goose and
duck fat are liquid at room temperature and are considered to be healthy
choices.

In addition to frying and
cooking, oils are used for drizzling. They are used in salad dressings, with
roasted vegetables, cooked fish, grains or crusty bread. Nut and seed oils like
walnut, hazelnut or sesame impart their distinctive flavours. Use sparingly.
They are bursting with flavour and are expensive.

Flavoured oils fall into the
same category as drizzling oils. An olive oil or a neutral tasting oil can be
flavoured with truffles, lemons, herbs, and exotic mushrooms.

Less healthy fat choices include
tallow or suet, lard and bacon fat. There is controversy with coconut oil. It
is deemed to be the new healthiest fat but there is no solid scientific
evidence to ascertain this. It is 86% saturated fat but devotees claim that the
fatty acid chains are shorter and therefore healthier.

In my kitchen, extra virgin
olive oil remains my favourite. It falls into both the drizzling and the
cooking categories. I use it because it’s a healthy oil, high in
monounsaturated fats and trace nutrients. I use it because it is the
traditional oil used in the Mediterranean cuisines I love.

I also like duck fat. It is high
in unsaturated fats and closer to olive oil than butter in composition. And I
use butter.

In the end, moderation is always
key. Limit your intake of fats, especially saturated and trans fats. You need
to match the fat to the cooking method and flavour. Each type of fat has its
own special qualities.

FatTypeSmoke
Point

ButterSaturated350F
(177C)

Butter (Ghee), clarifiedSaturated375-485F(190-250C)

Canola Oil Monounsaturated
400F
(204C)

Coconut OilSaturated350F
(170C)

Corn OilPolyunsaturated450F
(232C)

Grapeseed OilPolyunsaturated392F
(200C)

Hazelnut OilMonounsaturated430F
(221C)

LardSaturated370F
(182C)

Olive OilMonounsaturatedExtra
Virgin320F (160C)

Virgin420F (216C)

Extra Light 468F (242C)

Peanut OilMonounsaturated450F
(232C)

Safflower OilPolyunsaturated450F
(232C)

Vegetable ShorteningSaturated360F
(182C)

Sunflower OilPolyunsaturated450F
(232C)

Vegetable OilPolyunsaturatedvaries

Duck Fat49%
polyunsaturated375F
(190C)

How to Render Duck Fat

Take the skin and fat from duck,
avoiding the tail and neck areas.

Cut skin and fat into medium
sized pieces and put into heavy bottomed pot. Add water to cover and simmer
over medium heat until water has evaporated and the skin pieces are crisp and
have released their fat. That may take about 2 hours. Be careful not to burn.

Strain the clear golden fat
through a sieve or coffee filter.Store fat in a sealed container in refrigerator or freezer.

2.10.13

Welcome everyone to my dinner party! It is my turn to host the Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club and I have chosen a Cuban Dinner theme.

Cuban food has a rich history. It was the first and last Spanish colony in the Caribbean. In addition to Spanish influences there are flavours from Africa, Portugal and various indigenous cultures.

Cuban food at is heart is simple, country cooking. Meal times are family times and each celebration features traditional home cooked meals.

Many Cubans have sought refuge in the United States and Florida in particular. It was no surprise that the best Cuban food I have ever had was in Orlando. I visited Cuba several years ago and although the restaurants were charming and quaint, the supply of fresh food and ingredients was limited. We dined at the DuPont Mansion and Al Capone's seaside villa. There was no lack of fascinating dinner venues.

So I have invited everyone to make some Cuban food today. I am preparing the main course with Cuban Style Beef and Peppers. I decided to use brown basmati rice rather than white rice. Lots of black beans here! Please check these wonderful dishes from the team -Sandi –Whistlestop Café Cooking with Black Bean Soup

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About Me

By education, I am a home economist and by interest, I am an avid cook. I taught high school home ec for a little while, belonged to a dinner club for at least 17 years (same group!) and recently began teaching some cooking classes. I am a foodie at heart and always bring back a bag full of groceries from where I travel. It makes for an interesting pantry! All of the above happened while I lived in Calgary for 35 years. I spent 5 months housesitting in Tennessee and lapped up all the Southern cooking ideas.
Now I am back in Canada and bought a house in a little city on the Saskatchewan prairies.